Vampire Saguru extra snippets
by Lisa Telramor
Summary: Bits and pieces from the Vampire AU that didn't end up in the main story. Same Universe as A Flavor Without Name, Q&A With a Vampire, and First Impressions
1. Adjustment Phase

_AN: Bits and pieces from the Vampire!Saguru AU. Which somehow never got posted to FFN? 2016 waves hello to 2019. The world isn't much brighter than it was then anyway. _

_A reminder that in this universe, before Saguru took on the name of Saguru, his first life was under the name Sheridan._

*o*O*o*

Sheridan's locked in his room again. Today the sun felt too bright. Yesterday it was scents. A lot of days it's the scents. It isn't something to be discouraged by; he has been informed that he is adjusting admirably. It doesn't feel like he's adjusting well. He almost bit his aunt yesterday when she cut her finger making dinner. If he had hurt her he would never have forgiven himself.

He paces. There is little else to do when he is so restless. In the past he would study, but studying feels impossible now. The thought of trying to force printed words to make sense is absurd. The same change that makes tracking prey so much easier (humans, they are humans and using the word prey makes it worse even if it is the word the Professor uses) makes it harder to read but oddly easier to do anything that requires hand and eye coordination. Sheridan could probably perform surgery in the dark with his new eyes and have the muscle control to stitch a patient down to fractions of millimeters, but he won't.

The book on anatomy is still on the bedside table next to his oil lamp, its stamped leather cover from the secondhand shop seems to be mocking him.

Sheridan crosses the room inhumanly fast and snatches it up, intent on throwing it, maybe into the fireplace or maybe out the window, he hasn't decided yet. Or maybe he will rip it in two—that's something he probably could have accomplished even before his strength changed. It isn't fair. It isn't fair that the medical track isn't possible anymore. Sheridan has acceptance letters. Everyone is starting the term now and he is locking himself in rooms because he doesn't have enough control to handle himself otherwise.

He snarls at the book and scares himself with the realization—again—that he has fangs and that they are sharp. His lip bleeds.

At last moment instead of destroying it or throwing it away, he turns and slams it back into place on his bookshelf. The shelf judders from the force. The miniature globe—Father's—tips and Sheridan catches it before it can break on the ground.

He takes a deep breath, two, three, almost dizzy on oxygen and places it carefully on its usual perch next to Mother's Oriental vase. A vase that the older Sheridan got, the more he doubted was actually Oriental no matter how Mother had admired it. It held more sentimental value than anything else like the few other keepsakes he had from them. Aunt Maeve had most of them and that was as it should be. Mother had been her sister before she was Sheridan's mother.

The Professor—always "the Professor" because as of yet Sheridan doesn't care to use his name, not when he doesn't use Sheridan's name—had warned that Sheridan would have trouble controlling emotions. It is one thing to know this intellectually and another to live it.

The hunger likely is not helping, but he is reluctant to hunt. He is not confident that he can use the hypnosis the Professor showed him and even less confident he can keep from damaging a person lethally.

("A test run," the Professor said when he sent Sheridan home. "Survive for a week and keep a log on your progress. At the end of the week we will choose what to focus on to reintegrate you into the world." 'We' he said, as if Sheridan had any participation in this.)

He will hunt tonight. He will not take Aunt Maeve up on her offer of blood.

Sheridan sits on his bed and goes through the steps of reminding himself he is a calm, rational being, and how a calm rational being acts. If he repeats it enough, he should be able to emulate it whenever he finds his control slipping. If the mantra is not enough, he does not know what will be. (Let it be enough).


	2. Midnight Talk

_Kid has a chat with Conan after he found him in Saguru's bed._

*o*o*

Shinichi wasn't surprised that Kid sought him out almost a week after he found "Conan" with Hakuba Saguru. It fit what he had come to expect of the thief and his weird moral code when it came to the detectives that chased him. Still, Shinichi hadn't expected Kid to show up in the middle of nowhere when the case Mouri was on had nothing to do with gemstones or slander to Kid's name.

Then again, considering how often Kid seemed to show up without reason, perhaps Shinichi should just expect the unexpected.

Kid could have chosen a better place to pop up than right when Shinichi was leaving the bathroom though.

Kid snickered as Shinichi clutched his chest from opening the door to find Kid crouching at eye level. "Yo, Tantei-kun. How's life treating you?"

"Better when thieves aren't trying to give me a heart attack," he grumbled. A glance down the hall showed that no one was around; he had needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, so hopefully people would be asleep. "What are you doing here?"

"I figured we needed to chat." Kid smirked. It seemed to lack the energy behind it that it usually had. "Considering how we last met."

"If I remember right, I woke up to you drooling on Hakuba's elbow." Shinichi smirked back. The slight blush that he was sure Kid was suppressing with all his might marked a point in Shinichi's favor in their ongoing game.

"…It wasn't his elbow," Kid muttered after he had the blush under control. "I fell asleep next to his elbow. There's a difference."

Shinichi laughed. It was nice to see the usually full of himself thief looking uncomfortable. He stepped around Kid and moved toward one of the sliding doors to the outdoors. "Let's talk outside. We're less likely to wake someone up that way."

"After you," Kid said, straightening with a bow.

Shinichi rolled his eyes. Kid wasn't nearly as smooth as he pretended to be.

Outside was cool enough for the grass to be covered in dew. Shinichi stopped at the steps leading down off the deck that ran along the front of the house. If he put his foot a step lower, the tips of the grass would soak through his socks. He sat, looking out at trees and the ornamental flower bush that took over most of the open space in the yard. The stars were far more visible here than they were in Tokyo. Apparently unconcerned with the wet grass, Kid stretched his legs out when he sat down on Shinichi's right, his feet ending up in grass to his ankle. The thought of Kid squelching in wet shoes as he tried to sneak around had Shinichi snickering again.

"Laughing at nothing isn't going to convince me of your wellbeing, Tantei-kun," Kid said drily.

Shinichi stifled a snort. "No. I'm fine." He leaned back on his elbows to admire the stars. It felt a bit surreal to sit next to Kid, grinning barely considering trying to catch him. No more surreal than a vampire was though. "You want to talk about Hakuba."

"…More about how you're doing," Kid said after a moment. "Can I see your wrist?"

Shinichi held out his arm without protest. When Kid turned his hand over to examine the cuts Hakuba had made, Shinichi observed with him. The cuts were faint pink lines now. They'd healed faster than most wounds did for him and Shinichi wasn't sure if it was because of how clean the cut had been or if there was some sort of property in Hakuba's saliva that promoted healing. At any rate, the scabs had fallen away two days ago leaving new skin that was just short of too sensitive. Shinichi resisted the urge to yank his arm back when Kid traced the line.

"Huh." Kid let go. "Well it's not infected. I was worried since he didn't bandage it until after you woke up."

"Considering how many precautions Hakuba was taking I don't think he'd have risked giving me an infection," Shinichi said.

"Not enough precautions," Kid growled. "He could have killed you."

Shinichi blinked. Kid was too tense, visibly upset. He looked more human than Shinichi had ever seen him and that included injured and caught off guard. "You're taking it pretty personally. I pestered him about it. Hakuba didn't agree until he'd gone through a list of rules of what was and wasn't ok and how to stop him if he lost control."

Kid ground a fist into Shinichi's hair like Heiji sometimes did, mussing his hair until it stood up in fluffy spikes. Shinichi flailed and only managed to tip halfway off the stairs before Kid caught him and sat him back on the deck.

"Don't do that!" Shinichi hissed.

"You," Kid said flatly, "are an idiot. Hakuba's an even bigger idiot because he doesn't even have ignorance as an excuse" Kid glared, his monocle flashing in the faint starlight. "Hakuba's a vampire. He could have hurt you without even meaning to. When I found out, he almost gave a man a permanent neck hole because I surprised him." Kid flicked Shinichi's forehead and Shinichi glowered. "He was losing control and made me be his restraint. How would you feel to find out that he went behind my back and met up with you anyway?"

Shinichi rubbed at the sore spot on his forehead. Information settled in his mind, slotting things into new perspective. On one hand Kid's point of view made it seem like he took a lot larger risk than he thought he had. On the other, Kid sounded more annoyed that the responsibility had been put on him and then forgotten about than the fact that Shinichi could have been hurt by Hakuba by accident. "If you're mad at Hakuba, why aren't you giving him the riot act?"

Kid laughed sharply. "Oh, believe me, Hakuba has gotten an earful already. If he spends time around you in the future, you'll have a buffer and someone that can have a chance of overpowering him."

"You sound like you're volunteering."

"Not at all." Kid was all fake smiles now. Shinichi was willing to bet that he was too emotional right now and—with questionable wisdom—too open to try and act convincingly. "I'll be commanding Hakuba to start spending time with one of his least favorite classmates. He seems to balance you out at least a bit, and he messed Hakuba up when they first met too. With enough exposure he should get used to your scent, but who knows?"

"Kuroba."

Kid froze.

"That's Hakuba's classmate, correct?" Shinichi watched Kid closely and saw when the masks fell back into place and the emotion was swept up and locked away. Kuroba was important. Also, Kuroba looked remarkably like Shinichi's teenage self if he remembered correctly. Eerily like Shinichi. A bit like Kid could pass for Shinichi without a mask. Hmm.

"Yeah." Kid grinned. "Hakuba's like water to his oil. They don't get along well."

"You know an awful lot about the people in Hakuba's life."

Kid shrugged and tilted his head so his face was almost completely shadowed by the brim of his hat. "I know about all the detectives who chase me. I know quite a bit about you, too." He smirked. "Or did you think I wouldn't realize Edogawa Conan didn't exist until half a year ago?"

Shinichi tensed and his hand went for his watch on reflex. Rather than tensing, Kid went very still and Shinichi was willing to bet he was ready to react to anything that came at him.

"I'm good at keeping secrets, Tantei-kun," Kid said calmly. "And the last thing I would want is harm coming to one of my detectives."

Shinichi tightened his grip on the watch. "At least you're not wearing black," Shinichi muttered, more to himself than Kid. After a long moment, he lowered his hand. This was Kid. Infuriating, insane, and active irritant to the law, but he didn't kill and he had helped Shinichi root out murderers in the past. He could probably trust him not to spread the information to ears that would get Shinichi killed. "Well." Shinichi turned away to stare at the outline of trees against stars. "You know I'm healthy and I promise not to approach Hakuba without someone to be a buffer. You've done your duty."

Kid sighed and slouched out of his unnatural stillness. "Tantei-kun, I guessed ages ago; all Hakuba's DNA analysis did was prove it right. I won't use it against you."

"Not even to save yourself if I caught you?"

"Not even then." Kid smirked. "Besides, if I let you catch me, I deserve whatever I get."

"Good, because I'm going to catch you." Shinichi leaned back until he could settle his arms behind his head. He was starting to feel tired again. "But not tonight. You get a freebie for conversation."

"Don't I feel special," Kid drawled. Silence passed between them, the quiet filled with the soft sounds of night animals and the occasional hush of a breeze through the trees.

Shinichi found his eyes closing against his free will. Kid chose the worst times to show up. As he drifted off he felt something warm cover him. Shinichi squinted blearily at Kid who looked amused.

"Go to sleep, Tantei-kun. We can talk more later, like how you were okay with sleeping with Tantei-san, hmm?"

That was almost enough to pull him from the sleepiness, but Kid was already standing up.

"Good night, Tantei-san." Kid tipped his hat. "I'm glad to see you're unharmed."

In the back of his mind, Shinichi dreaded the next time he saw Kid because if they went down any vein of sex talk it would be beyond awkward. He wondered if Kid had dosed him with one of his notorious sleeping drugs. It was too hard to stay awake with the calm night around him.

With the sound of Kid's cape flapping once in a sharp gust of wind, Shinichi let himself go back to sleep.


	3. Edge of Morality

_AN: Saguru/Sheridan backstory. This time brushing along where Saguru starts to build his morals as a vampire and his new understanding of self. Warning for Blood, Murder, and Suicidal Thoughts_

o*O*o

Starvation was something Sheridan had experienced once. In the week after his parents died and before his aunt got news and came and got him, he'd run out of food and hadn't known what happened to his parents' money to buy more, and at that age barter hadn't occurred to him. It had hurt and water had helped, but after the stomach cramping stopped there was the awful light headedness and lethargy. Looking back, Sheridan was astounded that no one in the community had stepped in to look after him even temporarily. He had thought his family had friends, but things Aunt Maeve mentioned when Sheridan was older… Perhaps it wasn't so odd that no one in the community looked in to see what happened to their only child after the Blake family's accident.

Perhaps starvation was not the correct word, though. Sheridan had been without food for four days out of seven, enough to make him listless, but not enough to kill him or cause lasting harm.

Enough to scare a healthy respect for food into him that Aunt Maeve with her limited income had approved of.

Now he starved by choice. The Professor's research be damned, Sheridan knew exactly what could happen but of all the ways to die, this felt more proper than any more traditional methods of suicide, and he wasn't the type to seek out a hunter to kill him.

It was rather fitting that the Professor had died from one of his vampiric subjects turning on him in a starved rage. That was why Sheridan had assured he was far from populated areas to do this.

Aunt Maeve didn't know. So far as she knew, Sheridan was doing yet another experiment for the Professor. If she knew, she'd have given him a good talking to about why she kept him from dying from his sickness years ago and dragged him to church to put the fear of God back into his bones so he wouldn't consider such drastic measures. Being a vampire made God alternatively more and less believable. How could the change be explained if not an act of God or Devil? But what God would condemn such an existence on a man in the first place? The Professor's logic had left Sheridan skeptical after long exposure. As illogical as a creature of myth was, even vampires and spirits and shape changers held rules and natural laws that science could explain far better than religion.

The Professor was dead.

The hold he had over Sheridan was cut, and the hold over all the vampires the man had made were now gone, and there was no one forcing him in line or testing the edges of his sanity. No more participating in experiments that made the moral side of him cringe all for the Professor's satisfaction of knowing in the name of Science.

Sheridan had killed the vampire that killed the Professor, a young woman who had once been known as Antoinette Lamoure before the change made her unstable and the Professor's choice to test her with starvation led her off the deep end.

Her blood had been as red as any other's.

There was no comfort that her eyes hadn't held sanity in the end.

The place Sheridan had chosen to die in was already a tomb, a mausoleum in the ruins of a cemetery no one used anymore, thus no one would visit. Fitting all around, he thought. The part of him that enjoyed dramatics drew parallels with Stoker's Dracula, a vampire hiding amongst the dead away from the threat of light. Though light wasn't a threat, just Sheridan's conscience.

Research showed that it took less than a week to drive a vampire mad with hunger.

It was there that starvation differed from his memories, less pain and disconnection from reality, more blinding need and heightened senses.

Sheridan though he might learn to tell exact decomposition rates between corpses from scent alone from being stuck in a box of stone with four of them of his own volition. They were old enough that they were mostly bones with a few scraps of cloth and hair and mummified skin clinging to them, but his senses could tell that they had been human and that in and of itself nagged at his hunger in confusing circular patterns.

It would be better to stop eating and waste away. The Professor lectured about the importance of feeding and the benefits it could hold for both the feeder and the prey, but Sheridan had never seen it. The people he fed from were reluctant and left dazed, as much from the loss of blood as his hypnotism. It didn't feel right to live off the lives of other people. Even leaving them without the memory of an attack didn't make their body forget it happened. It wasn't symbiotic. Vampires were a parasite feeding off humanity that went on with their lives largely ignorant of their existence.

Yesterday had been the third day mark.

Four days for the four days he'd spent hungry in his childhood. He wondered how long it would take from here. Vampires had better resistance to things. Would it take days? Weeks? Months? Would the hunger take his mind and leave him nothing more than a beast that would not feel the guilt Sheridan felt now?

He was cold. The mausoleum was cold and dark, but not damp. Just full of dust and the scent of death, and the temptation to break out of the stone prison. It wouldn't be too hard. Even having chained the door shut behind him, he could leave if he tried with all his strength. All he could hope was that his resolve not to try would be enough in the end after instinct took over most of his mind.

Wind whistled through a tiny crack in the door that Sheridan couldn't see. The thin whistle was all he'd heard besides his own breath for the last few days. He closed his eyes. There was nothing worth looking at anyway.

Leave, eat, his mind whispered. Live, fight. He had fought enough; didn't the blood on his hands show that? His eyes opened. He could see a speck of dust move through the air, shifted by his breath, turning in minute detail. Why was everything so much sharper? Starvation should be like fading, not like slowly sharpening a blade until it broke.

Somewhere something metal pinged off stone. Sheridan tensed. The sound repeated, barely there, but he shouldn't be hearing anything. Then again, his other senses were better, why not hearing? Another clang and a voice, raised in a yell of anger and a second, shriller voice raised in what sounded like fear.

The Professor had screamed when Antoinette ripped into his neck with fangs and claws. It had turned into a gurgle and snarl as he tried to fight back. But a starved vampire was stronger than even one who was well fed; desperation did things that even science did not seem able to explain. Antoinette hadn't screamed when Sheridan killed her before she could burst out into London streets. Her lips had pulled back in a growl around her fangs. Her eyes had locked on his as he stabbed her and there had been nothing human there.

She had screamed five days into the experiment, pleaded. He had done nothing at all.

Perhaps it was regret for not going against the Professor then that made Sheridan break the chain to chase the scream. He could not say later if it was that or if the knowledge of humans had let the hunger get the better of him.

Cold autumn air assaulted his nose full of decomposing grass and leaves, the scent of dew and rain and earth. Moonlight narrowed his pupils to pinpricks, too bright after days in complete darkness. The night was too still, nocturnal animals silent and frozen with the echoes of a scream still lingering in the air.

Something clanged and Sheridan turned, right toward the stone crosses where a man held a shovel aloft and a woman was crumpled at his feet.

The space between them closed in the space of time it would have taken to breathe in. There was blood in the air, the woman's blood, and the man's eyes bugged in his ruddy face as Sheridan's hand closed at his throat.

The life was already leaving the woman. There would be no saving her with her head broken against old tomb stones. Blood fed the grass. It was as much a waste as Antoinette's life had been in the hands of the Professor.

The shovel fell into the dirt. The man choked in Sheridan's hold. He smelled like fear and piss where he'd wet himself, and whiskey and rage beneath it. He was revolting, but Sheridan's instincts still honed in on the pulse in his throat and the scent of blood in the air.

He would deserve it, Sheridan thought. Someone who preys on others, who would kill others deserves to face it in return. Sheridan deserved to be hunted for helping the Professor with some of his experiments, no matter how unwilling, and for Antoinette's life.

He didn't move with his usual subtlety and seduction. Sheridan ripped a gash along the man's collarbone and drank, holding the man still and struggling for breath. A whimpering gasp escaped the man's lips with what little air he had. Usually his victims didn't feel pain. Usually Sheridan fed them pheromones to overload them with endorphins and layered in hypnotism on top of it. It scared him a little how much he enjoyed the terror and pain radiating off his prey. But the man should feel it because he had killed the woman bleeding her life blood into the grass. For a moment emotion and instinct were in agreement. The choked sounds became softer the more Sheridan drank, and it was only when the man fell limp in his arms that Sheridan pulled back, feeling horrified at himself.

The man was still breathing, but shallowly. Sheridan was more full than was comfortable but he still craved to drink more.

He took a step back, almost tripped over the woman's body and froze.

He'd done just what he'd been trying not to do.

Yet.

He leaned down to the woman's corpse. She had been trying to run away. Too-sharp vision picked out tiny signs of a fight, boot prints too deep in the mud, a skid mark where she had dug her feet in, broken grass stems, a gouge in the soil where the shovel had missed, a chunk taken from a headstone, the cracked stone white at the break and dark where it had weathered. Her fear scent lingered around her. She had been young, no older than twenty. Unmarried. But not a maiden.

Sheridan turned back to the man. He could leave them both here. Leave the man to the slim chance he would die or that someone would find him and realize what he had done.

Or Sheridan could learn what happened tonight and bring the man to justice for his actions. His lips quirked into a wry smile. No one would bring justice to him for his own actions, likely not even if he turned himself in. In essence it had appeared to be self-defense after all, even if it hadn't been his own life he'd been thinking of when he killed Antoinette.

Sheridan knelt over the man and slapped his face until he woke and focused on Sheridan's eyes. The fear scent reappeared. This time Sheridan used his pheromones to push it away. "Tell me why you did this," he said with the voice that could lure a woman away from the man she loved and a man to leap from a bridge if Sheridan ever had the desire to use it that way. He had no plans to ever use it that way. The man's eyes went vacant and introspective. Maybe, just maybe, Sheridan could find a way to use what he had been given for those who had been the victims of people like the murderer in front of him. Perhaps even for victims of men of Science like the Professor had been.


	4. Spilled Beans

_AN: So a reviewer reminded me that this fic universe existed and I opened up my old wip doc to find a few snippets I thought I'd posted but apparently never got around to doing. So hey, ficlets._

_As for any more to the main plot (is there really a plot here?) I have some bits and pieces written and not the slightest idea where I was going to take it. I know I stopped writing it because it was getting too long and I was working on another long-fic at the time and couldn't juggle two long things at the same time. (I'm still writing at least one longer thing right now so...past me and present me will never learn apparently. -_- ) I'll try poking at it a bit, but no promises. ^_^;; Thanks Luna Babe for the reminder this universe exists._

*o*o*

The obnoxious dinging of his cell phone woke Saguru from a deep sleep—the first truly decent sleep he'd had in ages. It was Edogawa's number on the line and he had a moment of fear. "Hello?" he answered hastily, forgetting himself for a moment and speaking first and in English.

"Hakuba you bastard!" shrieked the person on the other end.

Saguru swore, pulling the phone away from his ear. Even with an arm's length between him and the phone, Saguru could hear Hattori Heiji's voice continue.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You have no control so you went and just—ow, fuck! Kudo!"

Kudo? On the other end Edogawa snapped something. The phone went muffled, and then beeped a few times as buttons were bumped. "Trying…not like…idiot!" Edogawa said in between the phone getting covered. Saguru assumed they were fighting over it.

Hattori swore—Saguru bet Edogawa had kicked him in the shins—and Edogawa said, "Sorry, Hakuba-san. There was a case where a tanuki was involved… I think the actual death was an accident rather than actively malicious but there were somethings that couldn't be explained and I had to talk to Hattori."

"He looks like he's seven right now!" Hattori said in the background, still pissed.

"I am aware," Saguru muttered. "I am very aware, and have had this conversation with someone already."

"Hattori, it was consensual," Edogawa sighed.

"You traded sex for information!" There was another string of cusses that ended in a yelp. Saguru wondered cruelly how big Hattori's bruises were getting.

"That's not how it was at all!" The phone was muffled again, this time by Edogawa. Saguru slumped back against his pillows, catching snippets of words. "Curi…and had to…but…anted to…nice so…ay?" Edogawa removed his hand. Both he and Hattori were breathing harshly, likely from yelling at each other. "Sorry. He grabbed my phone earlier."

"I understand entirely, Edogawa-kun. I didn't expect anything different if anyone were to find out."

"So did Kid read you the riot act after I left?" Edogawa sounded far too amused.

Saguru snorted. "You were there for some of it. He is very protective of you."

"I don't understand why."

"Ya lookin' too young is probably part of it," Hattori muttered, clearly closer to the phone again. "There's winter-spring relationships, but fuck, this is kinda messed up, Hakuba. You're old enough to know better."

"It's not a relationship!" Edogawa groused. "It was one time!"

"Like that's any better!"

Saguru hissed through his teeth. "Hattori-san, if you're so jealous of me touching Edogawa, you're going to have to solve that problem yourself." He took a stab in the dark with that one, just a vague hunch. The indignant sputtering from the other end said it had hit its mark.

"I don't—! I'm not—! Fuck you!"

"I really would rather not." His lip curled. He could all but smell Hattori's scent layered with purification and protection spells. There was a soft sound of Edogawa speaking and more sputtering. Saguru decided he'd humored their ill-timed phone call enough. "If you must confront me about this, do it at a reasonable hour and in person. Good luck talking this through and good night."

He hung up without waiting for a response. Really, he hadn't needed that. There was some lingering guilt, and still more than enough lingering attraction and interest to require Kuroba continue to buffer any meetings, but it wasn't Hattori's place to jump in. This was between Edogawa and Saguru and they had mutually agreed that it probably would never happen again. Saguru was actually surprised that it hadn't been a hard never again, but the likelihood was low that Edogawa would ever want to or that Saguru would trust himself to give in to temptation again.

And now he was having moral debates in his head when he was supposed to be sleeping. God damn it. Saguru pressed his face firmly back into his pillow.

Ten seconds later his eyes went wide. "Dammit. Edogawa Conan is Kudo Shinichi." And more irritatingly, Hattori Heiji realized it before Saguru did.

…Saguru was never going to admit that to his face. Ever.

*o*o*

**BONUS**

Tea? Tea was lovely. Not as lovely as it used to be, granted, but a warm cup was always appreciated. Well. Depending on the tea quality. It was a bit embarrassing that somewhere down the line Saguru had ended up a tea snob.

One nice thing about Japan; people had a basic appreciation of tea that Saguru could value in others. An appreciation for green tea more so than black tea unlike his preferences, but tea nonetheless.

And then there were the tea-haters who chose coffee or—god forbid—carbonated beverages over tea.

Three meetings in with Edogawa with Kuroba as a buffer and Saguru was starting to suspect Edogawa was one of those people who would choose coffee over tea and then drink it black. On the other hand, Edogawa seemed to enjoy the black tea Saguru served on his second visit more than the green tea he had served before, so the relationship was probably salvageable.

There was no accounting for taste.

And he wasn't as bad as Kuroba.

No one should add that much sugar to a cup of tea. No one.

Saguru resolved to brew the pot extra strong next time they met up. It would be a twofold victory of appeasing to Edogawa's preference for bitter beverages and cause Kuroba to wrinkle his nose with disgust. Small victories.


	5. Blood Donor

_AN: This was the one that made me forget to post. This thing here. _ I was back and forth over whether or not to post it back then, but fudge it. It's 3 years-ish later; it is here and might as well._

_Content notes: parallels to prostitution and drug addiction, so if either of those things are not ok for you, please don't read this snippet at all since that is entirely what it centers around_

*o*o*

Saguru hated Donors. No, hate wasn't quite the correct word or he wouldn't seek them out again and again over the years, tracking down those humans that were in the know about vampires and lived for the rush of being bitten. He hated how they made him feel. They were both, in essence, addicts seeking a fix; the Donor the high a vampire could provide, the vampire relishing in blood and emotional feedback loops. Perhaps it was his upbringing that made him dislike it so much. It was hard to trust what felt so addictively good in the moment.

It was a compromise at first, something that was morally acceptable in that it was willing prey. Feeding from criminals was a compromise he made later that he was more comfortable with even though those that he fed from there were not always willing and certainly were not informed.

It didn't feel…like he was performing some sort of unsavory transaction.

Unclean feeling aside, he always circled back to Donors eventually, if only when it stretched too long between proper prey. The Donor that met him today was young, not quite twenty, with long black hair and the jittery energy that people got when they needed a fix. Who had a worse addiction? The vampire that needed blood to retain humanity or the Donor that grew dependent on that rush of endorphins? She greeted him with a smile and a submissive tilt of her head that was a clear invitation to ignore social niceties and skip to feeding.

"What are you comfortable with?" Saguru asked.

"Shallow bites, cuts, touching, but not penetrative sex," the Donor said. "No damage that will take more than a week to heal, preferably."

He nodded. Standard enough tastes, though he had had people that wanted things from him that he couldn't provide because they made him uncomfortable in the past. A step closer and he saw her neck had fine white lines of scars, some still pink and healing, and there were others leading down below her clothing and likely some on her wrists as well. How long had she been a Donor? She was too young for this many bites… Saguru stepped closer and she caught his hand, pressing the tips of his fingers to her pulse point. He could smell the adrenaline and excitement on her with a mix of carnal hunger. It was closer to his blood hunger than it was to standard lust, but those two sorts of hungers tended to meld together.

He leaned down and kissed her and let his pheromones swamp them both. She submitted to it instantly and he wondered what it said about him that he preferred criminals that fought against the desire to submit more than a woman that volunteered for this.

Did that make him more like the monster legends portrayed vampires as or not?

The feedback loop kicked in halfway through feeding, a more delayed one than usual. For long moments he let himself get lost in it, body tingling with it until both lusts were sated.

He held the Donor in his arms as they reeled from the after effects. Her head lolled against the crook of Saguru's arm as she breathed. The line on her throat was just one more line of many. Her glazed smile scared him a bit. He'd seen it on people in opium dens once upon a time. She was the first Donor he had sought out in Japan and he could not help but think about the feedback loop with Edogawa not too long ago. It had been different than this. Pleasurable, but also soothing in a way this wasn't. He wanted it with Edogawa again. He did not want to feed from Edogawa ever again. It was a strange, conflicting emotion building in him as the Donor pulled him down for another kiss he barely felt. The high faded fast this time.

There was always a risk that someone could become an addict. Some donors had been people who dated a vampire or had been friends with one and let them feed from them one too many times before relationships changed and they found they needed the rush.

The last thing Saguru wanted was for Edogawa to become like them.

"I'd be willing to Donate to you again in a few weeks," the woman murmured against his lips.

Saguru jolted out of his thoughts. He wondered how often she Donated. Based on the lines still healing, too often to be healthy. She probably didn't wait long enough to fully replenish her blood. And this was one more reason why he felt wrong when he fed from a Donor. He brushed the hair away from her face with gentle fingers. "I will consider it," he said, not planning to return.

She smiled and he felt a stab of guilt. "I'm going to nap here until I head home," she said with a wave of her hand at the bed they'd failed to use earlier. "You could stay?"

The stab of guilt twisted deeper. She'd been all business before, but clearly she was one that liked contact afterward and he didn't feel comfortable giving it to her. "I can stay until you fall asleep," Saguru compromised.

It didn't take her long to drop off into slumber and Saguru left as soon as he had his clothing straightened out, locking the door behind him so she had some safety while she rested. The problem was that it wasn't always like this with Donors. The ones that were careful to replenish, who didn't let themselves fall to addiction, who he talked with beforehand and had a chance to know why they chose to be Donors, he didn't leave feeling like he'd committed a crime. The pleasure there was real and untainted, and perhaps that was why he returned to Donors, the few good experiences making up for the highs and crashes he got with so many others.

It was an addiction on his end as much as it was an addiction Donors experienced and the lack of tension in him felt stolen.

He wouldn't seek out another Donor while he was in Japan, he decided. He had the control to not need to. Saguru couldn't say he would have the strength to turn away if Edogawa offered again though. It was a bridge he would cross when he reached it.


End file.
